


The Human and the Merman

by alnxxy



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Human, Mermen, and unexpectedly comes face to face with cole, idk like it’s just a oneshot for now, is mermaid fluff a thing, it may be more one day, jay walker is a merman who’s so curious he breaks the surface, mermaid, ninjago mermaid au, seventeeth century, who serves the royal garmadon family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 16:25:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19816057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alnxxy/pseuds/alnxxy
Summary: Jay finds himself face-to-face with a human servant after breaking the surface.// platonic bruise





	The Human and the Merman

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like it’s crucial to note that this takes place in, like, the seventeenth century

In all of Jay's life as a mermaid prince, he had never once imagined he would dream of a black-haired human with the ability to walk. 

He had met the human quite by accident. 

Jay always had a knack for the unknown; had a secretive, adventurous side that made him quite brash. So it happened that with a rush of adrenaline and the high of rebellion that Jay broke the longest and most strict rule Ed and Edna had enforced: 

_Never, ever, ever break the surface of the human world._

"We were separated for a reason." 

Jay remembered his mother's words clearly.

"Humans and mermaids do not interact. Millennia ago, we were one. But acts of terrorism were continuously being committed to the other side, and them to us. Our ancestors agreed breaking our different worlds apart would be best for us all." 

And after, she would smile at him softly afterwards. This small tale was Jay's bedtime story. Time and time again, his mother spoke it to him before bed. 

Of course, the restriction of it made it all the more tempting. 

"Do you understand, pumpkin? We are separate for a reason: we do not belong in each other's worlds. It's best to leave it that way. If humans see you, who knows what they'll do? We never break the surface. Do you understand, baby?"

When he was in his childhood, his teacher made him write and talk about the human world. So, he did exactly that. He began researching them, researching their culture and their weird inventions. Researching their land; their wars; their weird anatomy. They had two oval feet, with five smaller feet at the tip. Apparently, this balanced them as they walked on the ground. 

_How crazy! They were glued to the ground, forever bound to the gravel!_

Jay had never been more curious after that essay. It both ruined and built his young, impressionable mind. 

He read about the sun, the stars, the moon, the beautiful light which came from the sun. This sun would rise every morning from the ends of the earth and would light up the world in colors resembling something known as ‘fire’, which heated their nights and their souls. The books described what they called a ‘sunrise’ as otherworldly. They said that the light would change from purple to pink to red and it would explode and implode into a multitude of colors that made you feel like everything would be okay. 

Jay wanted nothing more than to experience it. A whole new day, fresh of mistakes. 

Though his mother’s words ran wildly in his head like a warning alarm, the temptation of watching a sunrise outweighed his morals. In the late of night, when the kingdom was asleep and the guards were at their most vulnerable, the young prince had snuck out through his window and flapped his blue tail and swam and swam until the water got warmer and warmer and his heart climbed higher and higher in his throat _and the anticipation —!!_

He broke the surface, gasping for breath after an hour of non-stop swimming, and widened his eyes as he stared at the ‘sky’, which, until today, had always just been water to Jay. 

The books weren’t kidding. 

_Stars._

They were these little, twinkling dots that shined and lit up the entire land that was cloaked in darkness. 

_The moon._

A circular object, suspended in the middle of the magical night sky, and to the inexperienced Jay, he thought that the moon was like a protecter of the human’s land, watching over its children.

The air was crisp and so, so warm. As he breathed in the oxygen, it felt like pure heat climbing down his throat. He had never left the water, and it was drying him up. But he could handle it. The pain was worth the discovery. 

That was when he heard the gasp. 

It struck his conscious like the shrill of a bell, dragging him away from the drug of arrogance that had been initially pulsing through his veins. 

Suddenly, he became aware of just how terrible his actions were. 

He broke the rule enforced for thousands of years. 

And he was about to come face-to-face with the consequences. 

“Who are _you_?!” 

The voice was that of a teenager, only slightly shrill, but clearly developing. Jay was momentarily shocked at how closely it resembled a mermaid’s. He didn’t know what he expected; maybe a different language, or maybe an awkward accent. 

Jay turned towards the source of the words, and found himself staring at a human who was sat on brown ‘wood’. The harsh material had been assembled in a pattern that allowed humans to stand over the water. It took him a moment to remember the name. 

_Pier. That’s what the human was sitting on._

Yes, the human was sitting at the edge of the pier, his pegs—no, no, his _legs_ —dangling over the side, like two meaty sticks. There were instances in the merfolk kingdom where a merfolk was born mutated, and their tail would be split it two. This human reminded him of the poor souls who lived like that, except without the scales and fins. 

The human stared at him, clearly in shock at the head that had popped out of the water, like a projectile, in the middle of the night. 

“I’m ... Jay.” 

Jay’s own voice sounded breathless. It was low and quiet, shock lining his words like silver, expressing his emotions quite clearly. 

Astonishment; bewilderment.

“I’ve been here for hours and haven’t seen you enter at all, or leave the water for air. How’d you do that?” the human asked, eyebrows raised. 

This confused Jay; 

_Wait ... what? The human thinks I’m human too?_

“I ... I think you’ve misunderstood me.”

The human boy sent Jay a confused look. “How so?”

“I am not of your kind. I’m Jay Walker-Gordon, prince of the Sa’il.” 

The words he spoke sounded so familiar to his own ears. Since his birth, he had repeated them to visitors and listeners and admirers. 

_I am Jay Walker-Gordon’s, prince of the Sa’il kingdom._

He had always repeated it in the surroundings of water, with fish and merfolk watching him with wondered eyes. And now ... declaring those words in the presence of a human on their land, it felt daunting ... but it also felt new. 

Exhilarating.

“I am Jay Walker-Gordon, prince of Sa’il,” he repeated, making his voice deeper and louder. More confident. This may not have been his turf, but that was his title. And he was going to parade it. 

Jay didn’t think it was possible, but the human’s eyes further widened with disbelief. 

“S-Sa’il?!” he exclaimed, “No way. You’re lying. This is a practical joke, isn’t it?” He quickly competed out of the water, breathing rate beginning to rise dangerously. “Kai, I know this is you! And Nya, if you’re somehow involved in this, I will make you regret it!”

He turned back to Jay, now towering above him, and Jay had the chance to examine the human’s ‘feet’. 

“How remarkable,” he wondered aloud, swimming forward, placing his hands over the harsh wood and pulling himself upward a bit, just enough to see the five other mini feet stuck unto the original foot up-close. 

The human boy sent him a look of disgust. “Alright, how much did Kai pay you? Fess up.”

“Kai? Is this Kai a bank teller?”

There was silence from the human boy’s side for a while. “You ... you look genuinely confused. If Kai didn’t pay you to do it ... then how ... who ...”

The boy’s breathing began rising again. Despair riddled his voice. He was clearly in distress. 

At this point, Jay had moved on from the mini feet—which he only just remembered were called ‘toes’—and paid attention towards the actual human. 

Distress. 

Just like a mermaid would experience in times of confusion, the human did too. 

They were so much more alike than Jay could’ve ever imagined. 

“Hey, hey, human. It’s okay. I’m not here to harm you,” Jay attempted at comforting. He was an only-child with no friends, as his parents feared for his safety as the prince. He was no expert with social skills, and so he tried his best. “I am not here to invade your land. Don’t worry. Quite frankly, I don’t know how we’d invade your lands.” For further reassurance, Jay backed away from the pier and allowed his fishtail to bob in the water. “We would fail tremendously, as you can see.”

However, the human boy didn’t respond to Jay’s words. He just stared, dumbstruck, at the shiny blue tail that imitated the stars‘ sparkles, lined with a sheen of scaliness. 

The boy then took in a deep breath and screamed, slowly walking backwards of the rough wood, his eyes never leaving the fishtail.

“What- what the hell are you?” 

Jay frown deepened. “I— um, I thought that was pretty obvious. I’m a merman.”

“I thought you guys were just a myth ...”

“Well.” Jay shrugged. “If it’s any comfort, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure you guys were real either. I was going out on a fin here.”

It took five minutes of Jay sighing with boredome and the human‘s jaw open with perplexity before the latter finally began coming to his senses. 

Slowly, slowly, slowly, he went down on all four, taking his sweet time in crawling to the edge of the peer, pure and unadulterated wonder beginning to erase the disbelief in his beautiful, autumn eyes. 

As if in slow-motion, the human boy reached his hand out, his dark skin looking so pale in the moonlight. Jay reciprocated the action, reaching his own hand out and placing it over the human boy’s hand. 

The human’s hand was so disgustingly warm, and Jay had to wince a bit. It was freezing in the depths of which he lived, and this new humidity was nasty to him. The human, on the other hand, seemed to experience the opposite. His body shivered slightly, and he winced as well; except, he winced from the cold of Jay’s hand. 

Nevertheless, the touch was like a breaththrough. It seemed to rid the boy of any doubt that Jay was a ‘prank’. 

“Woah. You’re really ... you’re really here. I’m not crazy.”

Jay shook his head. “No, no you aren’t.”

“Earlier ... you called yourself the prince— of Sa’il, nonetheless. Are you really the prince of the famed Sa’il? We humans all think it a myth.”

“Yeah, I even have proof!” Excitedly, Jay snapped their contact apart, turning around in the water and showing the human his back, where a tattoo depicting his royal heritage had been pierced into him the day he was born. “This symbol—the Triton—is given to all descendants of the kings and queens of merfolk kingdoms. Each kingdom has its own sigil. This is ours.”

“I— I’m just a servant boy. I don’t how to react to this ... your honor,” he quickly added at the end, bowing his head a little. 

Jay dismissed his actions. “Oh, please. You’re a human. You’re not of our kingdom, our world, or our species. Such mannerisms aren’t required.”

He raised his head, smiling a little with the weird acceptance of Jay’s words. “You don’t care I’m so low on the social status to the point that I serve kings and queens?”

“Not at all.”

A laugh escaped his mouth. “Nice to meet you, Jay Walker-Gordon, prince of Sa’il. I’m Cole Hence, servant to the royal Garmadon family.”

And that was the beginning of their friendship.

They had stayed until the sun had risen, and Cole had laughed at Jay’s childish reaction to the sudden light. 

He had pointed at the changing sky, shouting with excitement. “The colors are spilling over the horizon, just like the book said. Look, Cole, look!” 

Cole twirled around in a snap, fight or flight instincts beginning to take hold ... until he saw Jay was simply talking about the gradual appearance of the ball of gas and fire. 

Cole ruffled his hair adoringly, and together they watched light engulf their world. 

_In all of Jay's life as a mermaid prince, he had never once imagined he would dream of a black-haired human with the ability to walk._

It began as a weekly rebellion. Once a week, Jay would swim an hour to the surface, and Cole would always be there, waiting. 

Now, Jay couldn’t necessarily testify that Cole was waiting for him. Cole was always sitting there, feet dunked in the water. On the rare occasion that Jay would notice Cole before Cole noticed him, Jay always noted a hint of sadnesss and hopeless swimming round and round like lost fish in his dark brown eyes. 

But Jay never asked. 

They mostly just spoke about each other’s worlds, but often the topic would then stray to memories and stupid jokes. 

Weekly turned into every other day, and every other day turned into daily visits. 

A merman and a human boy, meeting in nothing but the light of the moon and stars, bringing each other little treasures from their home. Once, Jay brought a rock, completely and utterly smooth from the pressure of the water, and Cole had spent the entire visit skipping it over the water with enthusiasm.

Jay would smile at night, in his coral bed, as he waited for the kingdom to fall asleep. As long as his parents never found out, he would be the happiest man alive. 

The only merman in millennia to communicate with a human; to build a sincere friendship with them. 

He just had to forever hide this from his parents. 

_Simple, right?_

**Author's Note:**

> it's a one-shot rn, but who knows if i finish TYA and wanna write more bruise, i might actually make it like fifteen-twenty chapter fanfic lol


End file.
